It's the end of an era for die-hard Yahoo users: The company announced last week that it will end support for Yahoo Messenger after July 17, 2018. While you can keep using the service until then, after that point you will no longer be able to access your chats or the service.

"We know we have many loyal fans who have used Yahoo Messenger since its beginning as one of the first chat apps of its kind," according to the Yahoo website. "As the communications landscape continues to change over, we're focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs."

Yahoo is not offering a replacement for Messenger at this time, but the site did say that it has launched an invite-only group messaging app called Yahoo Squirrel in beta. Interested users can request an invite at squirrel.yahoo.com.

Luckily, there are a number of popular workplace collaboration tools on the market to replace Yahoo Messenger. Slack has a number of app and bot integrations for workplace messaging and file sharing, while Workplace by Facebook offers a space for teams to collaborate, chat, do translations, and automate tasks with bots. Microsoft Teams is another chat and collaboration platform for Microsoft Office 365 customers, designed to simplify group work.

Yahoo Messenger users can download their chat history to a personal computer or device for the next six months. To do so, you can click here, sign in, select a verification method and enter the account key, click "download," and enter the email where you want the file sent.

Yahoo recommends deleting the app after you've downloaded your chat history and any other information you'd like to save, according to the website. Ending Messenger support will not impact any user's Yahoo ID, which will continue to work for Yahoo Mail and other products.

The big takeaways for tech leaders:

Yahoo Messenger will no longer be supported after July 17, 2018.

Organizations looking for an alternative for group messaging can check out Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Yahoo Squirrel.

Keep up to date on all of the latest leadership news. Click here to subscribe to the TechRepublic Executive Briefing newsletter.